Floriculture

The Floriculture industry provides valuable employment in East Africa and beyond, but also exists in a unique environment for living wage. With very specific conditions necessary for growing flowers for export, the non-metropolitan urban communities that form near lakes and airports to support the floriculture industry present challenges for living wage payment, as they often lack some of the more established infrastructure that exists in established communities.

Confronting this challenge and moving forward on living wage issues across the floriculture industry are a number of important organisations that are working with the Global Living Wage Coalition (GLWC) living wage estimates in Ethiopia and Kenya. GLWC members, and in particular, FairTrade International, have been working in close collaboration with organisations such as the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH), Hivos, True Price, and FSI2020, to create pathways to attain a living wage for workers in the East African floriculture context.